I like the idea of using an industrial pc. Small sailboats experience a lot of vibration and sometimes violent bouncing, slamming, and heeling. Most things on a sailboat have been tossed around and flung onto the floor at some point, so it will have to be bolted down.
I don’t know, maybe something like this?
KINGDEL Desktop Computer, Fanless PC, Intel i7 8th Gen CPU, 32GB DDR4 RAM, 1TB NVMe SSD, HD Port, VGA, 2xCOM RS232, W-11 Pro https://a.co/d/0eODy8RH
I was looking at something like this mini-router with OpenWRT:
GL.iNet GL-AXT1800 (Slate AX) Pocket-sized Wi-Fi 6 Gigabit Travel Router, Extender/Repeater for Hotel&Public Network, VPN Client&Server, OpenWrt, Adguard Home, USB 3.0, Network Storage, TF card slot https://a.co/d/0iP7qaKj
For a signal booster: weBoost Drive Reach Overland - Cell Phone Signal Booster for Off Road Vehicles | Boosts 5G & 4G LTE for All U.S. Carriers - Verizon, AT&T, T-Mobile & More | Made in The U.S. | FCC Approved https://a.co/d/00PNi0AE
Yeah, good point. Now that you mention it, there is no real reason to run the server 24/7 on the boat. Also, HDDs would not be happy with the amount of bouncing that small sailboats undergo while at sea.
Yes, I think you’re right that distro doesn’t matter. As I’ve been reading through the responses, I realize that the two main issues are storage (don’t want to use HDDs on a bounching boat, but SSDs are expensive per TB) and power (limited battery and variable voltage). As you say, corrosion may also been an issue that I hadn’t considered. I’ll probably have to check in with the sailing forums to see if people have trouble with their laptops corroding at sea. This server isn’t likely to get splashed directly, but it will be exposed to a lot of humidity and variable temperatures.
Hmmm, looking at the cost of large SSDs, I think you’re right that I should downgrade my storage requirements. Or perhaps I could use a large HDD that is turned off while underway for “long-term” storage and a smaller SSD for media that I want immediately available. That would avoid the problem of spinning a HDD while bouncing around in high wind and waves.
And, yes, we do have books, lol. But we also enjoy movies. :)
I live on Lake Superior, but this server planning is for a year-long voyage from Lake Superior to New York to the Bahamas and back. So, I do need to take salt and humidity into account.
This is a good idea. A modern laptop is already power efficient and has its own battery, which I guess would act like a UPS and protect the motherboard from big swings in voltage from the main battery bank.
I think you’ve hit on the key difference between home and boat use: the variable voltage. My battery varies between about 13.3V and about 11.2V depending on its charge state. I’ll look into these.
No, I didn’t know that was an option. Cool idea, though. No pun intended, but I’ll take it.
I just had to buy a new gas furnace and air conditioner, so, with my mind on global warming, I asked the furnace guy what it would cost to put in a heat pump. He said he has put in quite a few, but the costs have gone way up. He also said that in our climate I would need an electric back-up furnace for winter because a heat pump loses efficiency quickly at temps below -15C. The cost was going to be around $30,000, compared to $15,000 for the new gas furnace and AC. Also, electricity in Ontario is an incredibly expensive way to heat, so that would be a big extra monthly cost in the winter. An in-ground geothermal system would be about $65,000, he said.
It isn’t hard to see why gas is still popular, and that it will continue to be far into the future unless we undertake some kind of national project to replace our fossil fuel infrastructure with nuclear for the needed electricity and then convert our cars and homes over to full electric.
HRTO certainly has a large backlog. The backlog has doubled in the last 6 years to 9,527 cases according to the latest HRTO annual report. To put that backlog number in context, only 40 cases received a substantive final decision in 2023/24, and that was actually a large percentage increase in decisions compared to the previous few years. Prior to the pandemic, though, the HRTO was making about 100 decisions per year, so one wonders if the backlog itself has slowed down the ability to make substantive decisions because staff are too busy managing the backlog and trying to clarify a massive number of low quality claims.
Many COVIDiots filed human rights cases that clogged up the system a few years ago, though I’m not sure if those cases are still in the system or if the HRTO disposed of them en masse at some point. The annual report showed that dismissals without hearing have also doubled. Regardless, human rights complaints about mask mandates and vaccination were well-publicized and made people realize that the HRTO could be a vehicle for all kinds of new complaints.
Unlike a civil law suit, making a human rights complaint is free and does not expose the complainant to civil liability for costs. Nor do most complainants need or avail themselves of legal representation because the HRTO provides a lot of free assistance to complainants. (That said, the amount of support provided has also decreased recently due to the backlog, so the number of abandoned claims has also increased.) In any case, it is easy to make frivolous and vexatious claims with no legal advice because there is no cost and no risk in doing so. At the same time, the backlog and pressures in the system make it equally difficult to get legitimate claims adjudicated in a timely fashion. While we obviously need a barrier-free system for making legitimate human rights complaints, such systems are easily abused. With no costs or risks, the current system is the perfect vehicle for making unfounded accusations to intimidate defendants, cast aspersions, and entangle them in legal proceedings.
As I said above, we need barrier-free (or at least low-barrier) systems for human rights claims, but barrier-free systems always break down when they are gamed in large numbers. Backlogs create serious problems for legitimate claimants as they block access to timely justice and create administrative barriers for unsophisticated and unrepresented claimants. I’m not sure what the solution is, but the current system isn’t working for anyone.
There were two things in the original game that needed tweaking, in my opinion. The first was the over-powered “big money” strategy, which became almost a standard opening with which the starting player could open up an early lead. However, that was largely fixed by Rise of Ix. The second problem, in my opinion, was the original Imperium deck. It had too many weak cards, not enough opportunities to trash cards (or at least cycle the deck more frequently), and a relatively low frequency of combos. The relative weakness of the card deck compared to the huge point-generating strength of the phase 3 conflict cards made combat pretty much mandatory in the original game. These two issues led to some strategically-repetitive game play, which was only partially mitigated by Rise of Ix. (Side note: this weak, low-combo, low-cycling, low-trashing deck style is also characteristic of Paul Dennan’s other big game, Clank. He could learn something about interesting deck-building from Dominion, in my opinion. Then again, Dune Imperium is a more mechanistically complex game than Dominion, and it is harder to create a good deck that is also well-balanced with the other game mechanics.)
In Uprising, there are more steps involved in becoming a dominant combat-based player and there are fewer points to be had directly from conflict cards. This means that it takes more specialization and commitment to pursue a successful combat-heavy strategy. Also, especially with the Immortality expansion, there are better cards and more combo possibilities, which creates additional viable non-combat strategies. On top of that, they made the Spacing Guild more powerful in Uprising, putting it more on par with the other factions. All of this is great, but having more viable choices also makes the game more complex and can sometimes lead to less interaction and direct competition for key worker placement spaces if people are pursuing quite different strategies.
So, overall, I think Uprising is a more strategically balanced game that is less “on rails” compared to the original game. However, the original game is, on average, probably a little more tense and directly competitive because there are fewer viable strategies.
Take everything I said above with a grain of salt because I play both games with expansions. So I’m not really comparing base Imperium with base Uprising.
Interesting that you think Uprising is so much better than the base game. I’ve combined the base game with Rise of Ix and Uprising with Immortality and I find the two games equally good, and surprisingly different in terms of strategic options.
What do you find so much better about Uprising?
I just started playing Caves of Qud. It has two modes: rogue mode with perma-death and rpg mode where it saves at a checkpoint you can set. Having both options is nice.
I like this style of game, so I’ll definitely be trying Moonring, too.
Yup. I had no problem with snaps or Ubuntu until I saw that underhanded bullshit.
Yes, you are right. I had never put it together that Dutch and Deutch are so close, but it’s obvious now that you pointed it out. Thanks for the info.
Dutch is the English name for the dominant language of the Netherlands, and in English we often name people after their language. The Netherlands is also called Holland in English, even though Holland is just the most economically-dominant sub-region of the Netherlands, and the location of its main trading ports, rather than the whole country. Which makes sense if you are an English sailor who only knows the Netherlands through its trading ports and has little need to go inland.
My apologies. It was not my intention to be condescending. Perhaps it is my writing style. Anyway, didn’t mean to offend. Have a good night.
Sorry, are you saying that rain barrel water is recommended? Rain water does contain some dissolved and suspended material that it picks up in the atmosphere. Rain is one of the main ways that atmospheric dust, micro-organisms, and some gases are deposited back to earth. However, not all of the suspended material is electrically conductive. That’s why your rain barrel water can be green-tinted but still have low EC. Sometimes rain barrel water also contains harmful things if the water is collected from your roof, such as E. coli from the faeces of birds. That’s why you aren’t supposed to drink it.
Rain barrel water is good in that it is free, and is also preferable if you have a salt-based water softener. Tap water varies by city. Calgary’s tap water is quite neutral. Some cities have a pH that is much higher, and many people still have lead service lines so may not want to use their tap water.
For growing weed, you ideally want to start with neutral, low-EC water and then add your nutrients. If you are growing outdoors in a garden with amended soil, you don’t typically need anything except plain water, whether from the tap or from a rain barrel.
English is most similar to Frisian, apparently.
https://knoji.com/article/frisian-the-language-thats-like-english/
Frisian: Bûter, brea, en griene tsiis is goed Ingelsk en goed Frysk.
English: Butter, bread, and green cheese is good English and good Fries.